Further, these rules will help in curbing the misuse of debit and credit cards.

Also, RBI has directed banks to allow only domestic card transactions at ATMs and PoS terminals in India at the time of issuance/re-issuance of the card.

What About International Transactions?

In the case of international transactions, online transactions, card-not-present transactions and contactless transactions, customers will have to separately set up services on their card.

How Will This Affect?

From March 16, these rules will be applicable to new cards. For those with old cards can decide whether to disable any of these features.

According to the existing rules, these services used to come automatically with the card, but now it will start at the request of the customer.

For the Debit or credit card customers who have not yet done any online transaction, contactless transaction or international transaction with the card, then these services on the card will automatically stop from March 16.

How Will This Happen?

Further, the Reserve Bank has asked all banks to provide mobile banking, net banking option to enable limit and enable and disable service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The bank will alert the customer through SMS/email and send the information if the customer makes any change in the status of the card.

Moreover, the issuers shall provide to all cardholders facility to switch on/off and set/modify transaction limits (within the overall card limit, if any, set by the issuer) for all types of transactions — domestic and international, at PoS/ATMs/online transactions/contactless transactions, etc.

However, the provisions are not mandatory for prepaid gift cards and those used at mass transit systems.

As per the reports, the latest instructions come in the wake of rising instances of cyber frauds and the huge increase in the use of cards.